After what felt like seven seasons of fakeouts and a resolute refusal to actually use any characters from the Marvel Universe, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been busy casting beloved nerd actors in minor Marvel roles. And we keep hearing word that the show is bringing in the B-listers, the latest being a Master of Evil.

OK, so he’s not exactly one of the A-team: He’s Blackout, who you might remember is essentially a darkness manipulator. He’s also two characters in the 616, the demon version in the Ghost Rider comics and the Masters of Evil version played, now, by Patrick Brennan. Oddly, Marvel is combining the two characters: It’s the original Blackout’s name and likely origin, but he has the “new” Blackout’s power of suppressing light.

This is the way they explained it to me: This guy, Marcus Daniels, a.k.a. Blackout, was shrouded in darkness, his soul, everything about him was shrouded in darkness until he comes across this Cello player. And the music was the only light that came into his soul, and it gave him hope and it gave him some sense of what light was.

Considering the show has made a big deal of how Coulson can’t talk to anybody he knew, and had a thing with a cello player before he “died”… well, those aren’t hard dots to connect. And that’s also something the show desperately needs. It honestly has not been very good at establishing that these people have lives or personalities to this point.

We’ll find out fairly soon: Blackout’s first episode runs April 15th. We will, of course, faithfully recap it as it starts up again this week. Yes, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns April 1st. We hope that’s not an apt date.

On another note, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was fucking awesome. One of the few benefits of living abroad is that most of the major blockbusters these days get released a week earlier than the states.